An Honest Review of Ways to Make Money Online

There are many options for people trying to earn a few extra pounds without leaving the comfort of their computer screen, but only a few are worthwhile. On this page I review a few of the most popular methods.

Slice the Pie

First up is Slice the Pie, a site which pays you meagre pennies to spend minutes trying to review generic popular music, mediocre amateur music, and jumpers.

The biggest problem with Slice the Pie is that writing a review takes at least a minute, for which you are paid between $0.02 and (allegedly) $0.10, depending on the task, and your "star rating", which varies depending on the average length and quality of your past reviews. Writing short one-minute reviews will likely earn you $0.03 each, which would lead to $1.80 per hour – far beneath the goals of most internet earners, considering the amount of effort. Furthermore, you are likely to run out of things to review well before you earn even one dollar. Oh, and you have to reach $10 before you actually receive any money.

Verdict: 2/10. There are far better things that you could spend your time doing.

Qmee

Qmee provides a much-wanted break from the norm of having to reach a certain amount before being able to cash out. It also works: in just over three months I have earned a whopping £3.78. Considering the amount of effort required to raise this amount somewhat justifies using Qmee; the feeling experienced after noticing the green logo appear to the side of your screen, clicking a single link, and seeing your balance increase by 7 pence, is surprisingly satisfying.

YouGov

YouGov is a UK-based market research company, which pays members for completing surveys. I have tried many (if not all) survey sites, and YouGov is by far the best. The site's design and the consistency of the surveys will please anyone who has attempted to use the likes of Swagbucks and Toluna. It takes a few minutes every week, but the points quickly add up. I now have more than £38, and need to complete 24 more 50-point surveys before I'm given £50. You can choose to gamble your points, lottery style, and occasionally surveys worth 250 points appear.

Verdict: 8/10. It takes some time to reach the 5000 points required for payment, but £50 for completing 100 five-minute surveys seems rather reasonable. (That's 500 minutes, which is 8.33 hours, giving £6 per hour, which is actually above the minimum wage for people aged 18-20 in the UK.)

YouTube

I am yet to make much progress with YouTube; it obviously has the potential to earn you a large passive income, but until you have a great idea, there's not much that you can do. After receiving a grand total of $0.00 for 167 views on monetised videos, I feel as though I should move on, until I have a great idea (and a better camera).

Verdict: 4/10. Unless you have a superb imagination and immense determination, along with some video production skills, YouTube is unlikely to take you far.

eBay

eBay is my personal favourite on this list, although it does require you to leave the comfort of your chair, if only to greet the courier at the front door. It is arguably the easiest route to a large salary on this list. There is a lot to learn, but after a few months you can easily be making an extra hundred pounds each month, by spending a few afternoons searching for cheap used items, and selling them on for profit.

Note that these are sales figures, not profits.

Verdict: 10/10. This is where I invest most of my time when trying to earn some extra money. Over time your methods will improve: you will learn what type of items to buy, and how to cut costs.

Nectar

This is more of a side-note than a way to earn money in itself, but if you plan to try to earn money on eBay, you should also sign up for Nectar. You will receive a point for every pound spent on eBay (or in Sainsbury's), and there are often bonus points, such as 10x points in the week before Black Friday, which effectively means £10 cashback if you buy an iPhone for £200. The points-to-pounds conversion is simple: just divide the number of points by 200. If you're spending thousands of pounds on eBay each year, this is definitely worth having.

Verdict: 7/10. This is a simple and effective way to get at least 0.5% back when shopping at Sainsbury's and Ebay, although you are quite limited when spending this cashback.